The Danger of Causing a Christian to Sin
Matthew 18:5-9
Let's open our Bibles together and look at Matthew chapter 18...As we remember from last Lord's Day, this entire chapter is a discourse on the childlikeness of the believer, and a tremendously helpful chapter. We have much richness in store for us before we're finished with this great chapter.
For this morning, we're gonna be looking at verses 5 through 9. The second segment in our Lord's discussion of the childlikeness of the believer, and I would think that the Lord, if He were to title the section, would title it "The Danger of Causing a Christian to Sin." "The Danger of Causing a Christian to Sin."
As most of you know, I am the father of four children, very precious children. I wouldn't trade them for any that I've met. I guess that's a father's perspective. I love them. I am zealous for their spiritual growth, for their continued movement ahead to be like Jesus Christ. I am committed to care for them, to protect them from harm and from danger. I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility for them. From time to time in their lives, someone comes along who may lead them away from the things that I believe. When they were little, playmates might want them to go play in the street or go someplace that they knew they were not to go, where there might be harm or danger. When they got into school, their schoolmates might pressure them to certain attitudes and certain actions and certain words of vocabulary and certain functions that we really didn't want them to be involved in; and there was a certain amount of pressure coming from others to pull them into those things; and then, of course, the world in general just tries to force them into its evil mold by its overpowering influence.
And as a father, I've always tried to fight those things. I've always tried, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, to contribute to my children's welfare physically and spiritually; and I can just tell you this as a certain basic relational feature. If you wanna be in good with me, then join me in the care of my children; and if you wanna be in bad with me, then influence my children to do things that I don't want them to do or to believe things I don't want them to believe or to behave in ways that I don't want them to behave. In other words, how you treat my children is gonna affect your relationship to me. If you contribute to the welfare of my children by spiritual influence, by lifting them up, by teaching them the things of God, by encouraging them to obey their parents, then you and I are gonna get along fine; but if you influence my children for evil, then we have a problem.
I think any of us as parents can identify with that. You can remember times in the raising of your children when another child influenced them to evil, and it grieved your heart and made it very difficult for you to hold that other child with any kind of balanced perspective. Some of you have experienced, you had a daughter and perhaps a young man came along and made her pregnant and drop...brought great pain and anxiety to your heart. Perhaps you've had a young person, and someone has sold them drugs or led them into some kind of illegal activity, and it goes on and on. Or maybe you send your child off to college, and...and his mind was stolen by some who wanted to take away the truth of God and replace it with the emptiness of man.
I was reading yesterday a book called The Lord of the Second Advent, the story of Steve Kemperman who went away to college, his father being a fine Ph.D. in mathematics, sent his son to college to prepare him to be a...a full, well-rounded young man, and the Moonies got him and turned him into a...a cultist; and it tells the story of how he was rescued by the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We've all had experiences like that where we desire to protect our children; and we worry about the influences of the world; and...and we know that if you wanna be on the side of the parent, you wanna accompany the parent in his effort to make his child all that he wants him to be.
Well, if we as human beings feel that way, then you can imagine how God feels; and you can imagine how great it is a concern of the heart of God that His children be well cared for, that his children be respected and protected and nurtured in the direction of His holy will for them. I suppose we would assume, too, that, for Christians, we would be very careful how we treated other Christians, knowing they are the children of God.
In 1 John 5:1, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone that loves Him that begot, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him." In other words, if you really love the Lord, you certainly would love His children; and if you sought the glory of the Lord, you would certainly seek the welfare of His children, wouldn't you? I mean it just seems obvious. I mean if you were a Christian, you wouldn't seek to undermine the spiritual life of another Christian, would you? Well, certainly not when you think about it that way.
And, yet, in Matthew chapter 18, a most interesting thing is going on. The disciples, children of God, who belong to Jesus Christ, are provoking one another to sin...by arguing and hassling and debating about who is the greatest in the Kingdom, they are provoking each other to bitterness, to rivalry, to ambition, to pride, to envy, to jealousy, to self-seeking. In other words, they are mutually causing each other to sin; and our Lord takes on this matter by instructing them as to the importance of not causing one another to sin.
Now, how you treat God's people has always been of great concern to God. Go back with me for a moment to the 105th Psalm. The 105th Psalm, and here we find a reiteration of God's relationship to His people Israel...In verse 5, "Remember His marvelous works...says the psalmist...that He hath done, His wonders and the judgments of His mouth." He was doing, in great measure, what Drew exhorted us to do in the song -- to remember the wonders of God; and they were there called by that by Psalm to remember all that God had done for them, particularly His faithfulness to His covenant. "O ye seed of Abraham, His servant, ye children of Jacob, His chosen. He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth. He hath remembered His covenant for ever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations, which covenant He made with Abraham, and His oath unto Isaac, and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel or Joseph for an everlasting covenant."
And so it's a reminder of God as the covenant-keeping God, the faithful God; and he says in verse 12 that God remembered the covenant, even "when there were but a few men in number, yea, very few and sojourners. When they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people." In other words, God remembered the covenant, not only in the times they were in the land, but in the times they were scattered, and the times they were...they were drifters, and the times they were sojourners, God was still faithful.
And verse 14 is what I want you to note, particularly. "He permitted no man to do them wrong; yea, He reproved kings for their sakes, saying, 'Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm.'" Now, the psalmist is saying that God has always been zealous for the protection of His people. He's always been concerned that His people be cared for, and that anyone who wounds His people, anyone who brings either physical or spiritual harm against His people, is touching God's anointed; and that brings God into the picture in terms of a holy reaction.
This all started in Genesis chapter 12; and when God first set out to call a nation from the loins of Abraham, God said this. "I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee." In other words, from the very beginning, how one treats God's children is a determiner as to the blessing or the cursing of God on that life. How you treat God's people is a determiner of blessing or of cursing.
In the 27th chapter of Genesis in the 29th verse, a reiteration of the same word comes. It says, "Cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed he that blesseth thee." And, again, how we treat God's people is a determiner of blessing or cursing. God has always desired the positive influence on His people. When God laid out the law by which Israel was to live, He wanted that law not only to be held up so that each man could be holy, but so that each man would not be causing other men to sin. Not only are we, as they were, responsible for our own sinfulness, but for the sinfulness of those around us.
That's why, in Deuteronomy 24:4, it says, "Thou shalt not cause the land to sin." Not only are you not to sin, but you are not to cause someone to sin; and that very important passage is in reference to an illegitimate divorce. When you put away your wife without grounds, you make her an adulteress. You make whoever marries her an adulterer. You become an adulterer when you remarry, and you make an adulteress out of the woman you marry. So don't do that. Don't put away your wife without cause. In other words, God is very, very concerned that we not cause His people to sin.
Now, that becomes the issue in Matthew 18; and we'll look again at that passage. Jesus brings up this whole matter of our responsibility in regard to each other. Most people, and I...I suppose we could say this hoping that it were true, most people who call themselves Christians have some concern for their own holiness. Most people who really are Christians certainly are concerned about their own purity of life. But I wonder if we really ever stop to think about the purity of the lives of other people. Maybe we're sort of content if we can just take care of ourselves, and we don't worry about how we affect anyone else. That's quite contrary to what God is saying and what Christ is teaching in this passage. We must not only do no evil in our own lives, but we must never cause another Christian to sin. That is the specific message of this passage.
Now, let's look at three key words: the principle, the peril, and the prevention. Verse 5 is the principle. It's a very simple passage, very straightforward, and very convicting. I want you to know in my own heart that I have battled through these principles now for about two weeks, and I trust and pray that the Lord is using them to refine my own life as I trust He will in yours.
The principle comes in verse 5, and this sets everything up. "And whosoever shall receive one such little child in My name, receiveth Me." It is impossible, says that verse, to separate God from His people. It is impossible to separate the Lord from His people. The prophet said, "He that toucheth Israel... toucheth the apple of my eye." Now, that isn't an...the apple of his eye isn't out here, some apple, the best-looking apple in the bunch. That was the Hebrew way of saying the pupil of the eye. God says, "When you touch Israel, you jam your finger in My eye, and that irritates Me." You're taking a poke at God's eye, the most vulnerable part...part of the exposed anatomy. That's the most sensitive thing to be wounded or injured. You are poking God in the most sensitive area when you touch His people. That's a basic principle. Why?
Because when you receive His people, verse 5, you're receiving Him. The implication is He's bound up with His people as one. Now, this is a favorite teaching of the Lord -- the concept of the believer's unity to Him is really, in many ways, the heart and soul of Christianity. We're not people who believe in a system. We're people who are united with God, aren't we? We are one with Jesus Christ. We don't just follow His teachings. We're one with Him, and the Lord taught using this principle again and again, one of His very favorite truths.
In Matthew 10:40, we saw that He said He, "Receiveth you, you receiveth Me. He that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me." We find also in the Gospel of Luke another indication of this same principle taught by our Lord in verse 16 of Luke 10. "He that heareth you heareth Me. He that despiseth you despiseth Me. He that despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me." We find it also in John's Gospel in several places, really. Just to call to your attention the more familiar ones, John 13:20, "Verily, verily I say unto you, he that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth Me. He that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me." John 14:20, "And the day you shall know that I am in My Father, and He in Me, and I in you." We find also in the 9th chapter of Acts where the Apostle Paul is indicted on the Damascus road and dropped to his knees before the Lord Jesus Christ; and Jesus says, "Paul...or Saul...why persecutest thou Me?" In other words, though Saul was killing Christians and persecuting Christians, the Lord says, "You're doing it to Me." It's very familiar Biblical truth that God's life is bound up with His people; and when you touch His people, you're touching Him. Very important foundational principle.
And we could dive deeply into this truth. It is literally all over the New Testament. First John chapter 2 verse 24, it says, "Let that therefore abide in you which you have heard from the beginning. If that which you've heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you shall also continue in the Son and in the Father." First John 3:24, it says, "And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in Him, and by this we know that He abides in us by the Spirit whom He's given us." Chapter 4 verse 13, "By this we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He's given us the Spirit." That's just 1 John, and you can find it in the letters of Paul and everywhere. Peter and James. You find this idea that we're in Christ, and we're indivisibly linked with the very person who is our Lord and Savior.
He is the vine. We are the branches. He is the body. He is the head, rather. We are the body. He is the foundation. We are the building. He is the husband. We are the wife, and so it goes. In fact, when Paul wants to speak against sexual evil and bring the strongest argument to bear in 1 Corinthians 6, he says that, "When you join yourself to a harlot, you become one flesh with that harlot." And then in the next verse he says, "And he that is joined to the Lord is one sprit." So you are one in the Lord, and if you join yourself to a harlot, you're joining Christ to a harlot. In other words, you can't separate yourself from Christ. You are in Him, and if you drag Him into harlotry, you have defiled yourself a very, very unique way. And so the believer is one with Christ, for the positive affirmation and for the realization of the negative features of dragging Him into your evil. He is unstained by it, as the sunlight is unstained, though it shines on the grossest sin; but, nonetheless, you abuse His holiness in such activity.
So Paul argues against sex sin by the union of the believer to Christ; and that's exactly where Matthew is in chapter 18 verse 5. He is saying we are one with the Lord; and whoever receives us, receives Him. Now, lemme say it very simply, folks. How you treat Christians is exactly how you treat Jesus Christ. Now, that goes for you whether you're a Christian or not. Anybody. Verse 5, "Whosoever...anybody...shall receive." Decomy, to receive as a guest, to welcome, to treat with kindness and love therefore. In other words, to embrace someone, to take them in, to receive them. "In my name...Because they belong to Me, because they represent Me, because they are one with Me." In other words, when you embrace one who belongs to Jesus Christ, when you welcome them as a guest, when you treat them with care and with protection and with kindness and with love, you are doing that to Jesus Christ.
Now, that's the bottom line principle. Notice that it says there this...or "one such little child." Verse 5, verse 5 says, "One such little child." What does that mean? Some have thought that it meant an actual child. I don't think so. I don't think that's the point of the text. The child that Jesus has in His arms while He's teaching this chapter is an analogy. The child is a demonstration, a symbol, an illustration. He's talking here about one such little child. What such little child?
Well, the little child in verse 4. What little child is that? It's the one who humbles himself as the illustration of the child. What in verse 3, "Becoming as a little child." In other words, he's talking about the same little child that entered the Kingdom, the same little child whose humility made him great, is the same little child that you're to receive. It is the spiritual little child, the believer, the one that comes to Christ. It's not talking about the infant. It's talking about how you treat one of God's children who came to Him in humility, who came to Him in simple childlike faith, which was the whole point, as we saw, of verses 3 and 4 in our study last week. No matter how lowly that child is, no matter how humble, no matter how lacking in sophistication, no matter how lacking in power or in fame or in grandeur, no matter if it is an ignoble, if it is the poor, if it is the least among men. That little one who belongs to Jesus Christ, even one such one, is to be received as if you are receiving Jesus Christ Himself. So how you treat Christians is how you treat Him.
Look at Matthew 25 verse 34; and here we come to the judgment of the sheep and the goats at the Second Coming of Christ; and, "The King says to them on the right hand, 'Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me food. I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me in; naked, and you clothed Me. I was sick, and you visited Me. I was in prison, and you came to Me.' And then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when saw we Thee hungry and fed Thee, or thirsty and gave Thee drink? When saw we Thee a stranger and took Thee in, or naked and clothed Thee? Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came to Thee?' And the King shall answer and say unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me.' Then shall He say unto them on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me not in. Naked, and you clothed Me not. Sick and in prison, and you visited Me to.' The shall they also answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when saw we Thee hungry or athirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee?' Then shall He answer them, saying, 'Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.' And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."
How you treat God's people is how you treat Jesus Christ. Very important truth. That's the basic principle. However lowly, however you may affirm that believer to be the least, the kindness, the care, the protection that you give to that believer to keep him from stumbling and from sinning is exactly how you treat Jesus Christ. That's the principle. That's the positive.
Let's look at the negative, the peril. Verse 6 and 7. Verse 6 says, "But," now here's the adversative, the other side of it. "Whosoever," in or out of the church, folks, saved or unsaved, Christian or non-Christian...whoever, doesn't matter. "Shall offend," cause to stumble. How do you offend...a Christian? By causing them to do what? To sin. That's the only thing it could mean. To trap them, to catch them in a trap, a death trap, a sin trap, to make them stumble into evil. It's the very opposite of verse 5 where you protect them, where you care for them, where you receive them as one who belongs to Jesus Christ.
You know, if Christ were to give you a life and say, "This was...this belongs to Me. Would you protect that for Me?" and He were here literally to hand that life to you, I think you'd probably be very concerned to take care of that life. Well, that's how it is with every Christian. Every Christian. When you care for every Christian as one who belongs intimately, personally to Jesus Christ and is one with Him in spiritual union, that is the way you are to receive God's people.
But, on the other hand, "If you cause one of these little ones who believe in Me," and there we find that He can't be talking about physical children, micron, little, tiny infants can't believe in Him. He's talking about those believers who are classified in this whole chapter as infants or childlike. When you cause them to sin..."It were better...or it would be preferable, or it would profit you instead of that...that a millstone were hanged about your neck, and you were drowned in the depths of the sea." You would be better off dead than alive offending a Christian, making 'em sin. You see, God is not only concerned that we not sin, but that we not make other people sin....Better you should be dead. Beneficial you should be dead. Profitable that you should be dead rather than do that. Preferable. The language here is really vivid.
You know, in those days, they crushed corn to make flour, to make bread and things; and they would have in the home a little stone; and it would be sort of bowled out, and another stone; and they would just go around and around until they crushed the corn. That is not the stone that is referred to here. This is the millstone. Literally, in the Greek, mulassanikas, the mule stone or the ass's stone. This is not the little one you had in the house. This is the one that was pulled by the mule, the one that Sampson was tied up to when he was grinding grain in his blindness. A beast had to pull it. A massive, huge stone, weighing tons. Huge would come into their minds when they heard mulassanikas.
It would be better if you took a stone like that, tied it around your neck, and, literally, in the Greek, it says drowned far out in the open sea. Taken way out with a stone weighing tons around your